The 33-km individual time trial set around Caen on day 5 of the Tour de France 2025 saw Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) and Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) dominate the field. In line with his maiden victory last year in Gevrey-Chambertin, the Belgian star claimed a second stage win in the Tour, thus becoming the third rider to dominate ITTs in different editions of the Tour as the reigning world champion. Second on the day (+16’’), Pogacar takes the Maillot Jaune as the new overall leader of the race, 42’’ ahead of Evenepoel. With yet another strong performance at home, Normandy’s Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) completes the GC top-3 (+59’’) ahead of Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), who finished 13th on the day and now trails by 1’13’’, while Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) dropped down to the 6th position (+1’28’’) after his three days with the Maillot Jaune.
The withdrawal of Emilien Jeannière (TotalEnergies) and Jasper De Buyst (Lotto) reduces the number of riders in the Tour to 179, but spectators in Caen are still treated to a clash of champions at the start of the programme for the first time trial (33km) of the 2025 edition.
Affini sets the tone
Kazakhstan and Asian champion Yegueniy Fedorov had just enough time to set a first reference, rapidly beaten by Pablo Castrillo. The Spanish rider is then overtaken by the youngest rider in the peloton, none other than his Movistar teammate Ivan Romeo, who is also the U23 ITT world champion.
His time seemed under threat from Luke Plapp, who beat him at all the intermediate time checkpoints, but the Australian champion faltered in the final stretch. It was quite the opposite for European champion Edoardo Affini, who put in a stunning performance, finishing 30 seconds ahead of his Spanish rival with an average speed of 53.2 km/h.
Evenepoel ups the ante
The ITT French champion Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) delivers a very strong finish but he is 2 seconds shy of claiming the hot seat. Then, nobody comes close to Affini's time until the best GC contenders set off a couple of hours later.
The intensity picks up with the arrival of Florian Lipowitz, stronger than his leader and former Olympic champion Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe). But it was the world champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) who really upped the ante, relegating Affini to 33 seconds behind with an average speed of 54.0 km/h.
Pogacar in yellow
Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) is the closest to the Belgian star (+16’’), which earns him the Maillot Jaune, on top of the green and polka dot jerseys, with a lead of 42’’ to Evenepoel.
Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) completes the GC top-3 (+59’’) ahead of Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), who finished 13th on the day and now trails by 1’13’’, while Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) drops down to the 6th position (+1’28’’) after his three days with the Maillot Jaune.
